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For Part One of our interview with Roli Roti owner/founder Thomas Odermatt, click here. Here is Part Two:

PL: Let’s talk about the famous porchetta sandwich.

Using the bread to mop up the juices is a crucial step, says Odermatt.

TO: I started offering that in 2006 for the first time. I just had decided to make a new product. I took my father here [to California]. He was 86 — now he’s over 90. He’s a master butcher, but not the typical butcher. He’s extremely skinny and eats very little meat; his main dish is vegetables and his side is meat. He taught me the porchetta.

Porchetta is not traditionally Swiss but we had lots of immigrants from Italy after the second World War, and they needed jobs. My father told them to cook things they liked to overcome homesickness, so we had porchetta on the menu.

It took me two years to roll it out here. We’re using an extremely old-fashioned technique of butchering. It’s a technique not really used for a porchetta roll in butcher shops today. We cut the porchetta in multiple sections and put them back. It’s butterflying but in multiple sections. We also tie the porchetta so tight there’s no way that juice or foam can create pockets within the meat, creating a more even distribution of the juices.

This creates the ability to have a better skin, more crispy and the separation from the fat level to the skin level. When roasting, the skin separates from the fat, and becomes crispy. You can’t create that in an oven. You need a motion of turning so you constantly have the separation. But we use the traditional technique of tying. That’s what the secret is.

Was it as popular then as is it now?

In 2006, I rolled it out and I just had one roll. I thought we do it like Switzerland, but good lord, after 45 minutes, that thing was gone. I still remember. I didn’t do it again for 2 weeks. I made it better. People really responded really well. I thought, let’s make a simple sandwich, with simple ingredients — let the flavor of the meat speak for itself.

How many do you sell a day at the Ferry Plaza?

Between 500 and 700 sandwiches. But we do it only in the Ferry Plaza. You should see my guy’s hands. They are turned into tough butcher hands from the strings. Very tough.

What do you envision going forward?

I now have six trucks. I do quite a big farmers’ market business, but seasonality is our biggest problem. A lot of markets are not open in winter. I’m looking for a store, but I’m a little lost in strategy. Is it just a porchetta store? Should I park a truck in the middle of a shopping center? I know trucks. I know how they function and we have rarely any employee turnover. We have such a stable crew; it’s another thing I’m proud of.

Is it a profitable business?

Photo: The Chronicle

You know, I can’t complain. It’s a profitable business, but it’s not that I will become rich from it. That’s not my focus. My focus is to make a product that everyone can smile and laugh and if it’s good, it’s really good.

When you see the massive line at the Ferry Plaza, what do you think?

I get nervous. It’s not my preferred way. Coming from Switzerland, from Europe, guess what? We don’t stay in lines. Here, it’s acceptable. I don’t want long lines, but I want to make the best sandwiches. I know there are some things I can do [to reduce the line], but I think that would make my quality go down. I don’t want to do that to the porchetta or to the paying customers. I struggle with it. It’s a hard one, a tough one. I want the customer to get the best.

We try to make an assembly line, to make it move faster. The line is still long, but it moves faster nowadays. Our technique is not just a sandwich from a meat slicer with moping up the bread, picking up the juices, putting the crispy skin in, the curly cress, the marmalade, the arugula.